Plastic

I recall the 1967 classic movie The Graduate wherein Dustin Hoffman was encouraged to go into "plastic" at his graduation party by a friend of his parents.  I think of that and the M.P. Tuna and her aversion to plastics.  And, lo and behold, a Magic Plastic Tuna plastic sighting this morning.  Exited the building with a Rubbermaid style bowl, handed it off to a friend and entered the building sans bowl but with a styrofoam egg carton.  Yikes...Holy Recycling, Batman.  Good to know some people practice what they preach.  It may be she needs some social engineering to affect positive change; that she has merely surrendered to the inevitable plastic gods.  But, no.  Smoking as a form of social engineering=bad...outlawing cars and plastic on campus=good social engineering.  Don't look for logic here.  And I quote, so you may judge the issue for yourselves:

If the university cared about anything beyond its bottom line – if they were truly concerned about our health and safety and the air we breathe, they would do something about the amount of plastic this campus generates.  And they would prohibit cars on campus.  Plastic pollution and car exhaust contribute more to  environmental degradation, of all kinds, than cigarette smoke.  But there’s no monetary incentive to prohibit these toxins – in fact quite the opposite.  This phony moral outrage is over smoking is just corporate greed posing as civic responsibility.   

My font here is failing me, but the spirit is strong.  I just don't understand this line of reasoning.  And as long as she owns a car and drives the roads, this reasoning is most hypocritical.  I would welcome the opportunity to share some rationality with The Magic Plastic Tuna but that ship has long since sailed.  Communication over, as she has said to me.  Practice what you preach, doll face...unload the car and all its plastic and unload the bike with its petroleum based tires and walk.  No plastic, no styrofoam egg cartons.  And what about the pernicious aspect of paper?  Let's go totally over the top.  Paper comes from trees, the degradation of the forests.  The process of producing paper using chemicals is harmful in and of itself.  Recycling helps some.  Like recycling plastic.  Okay, I am going off another slippery slope.

Bottom line: if you are going to rage against the machine make sure you aren't actually part of the machine.

 

  

 

The last word on the Magic Plastic Tuna

I believe it was Mark Twain who opined  "better to be quiet and thought a fool that to open your mouth and remove any doubt".  I believe, based on some responses I have received, she has removed all doubt.  Not a very good anarchist who pays taxes and uses civil society to suit her needs and not a very good atheist either as she has a statue of Buddha in her cube. I realize that is just to piss the religious faction off, but hypocritical nonetheless.

Nonsense but then I have a solution

While the Magic Plastic Tuna opposes the social engineering of the university to ban smoking she is all for the equally social engineering of ridding the university of all plastic.  So my solution is give all your plastic, wanted or otherwise, to the Magic Plastic Tuna and she will do her anarchist best to see that it is banished from the university.  Just pile it on her desk and she will, rest assured, make sure it vanishes.  I guess I am "not as smart" as she as I can't see the difference between banning two harmful substances from the planet.  I guess one person's social engineering is another's utopian anarchist's dream.  Go figure...

Magic Plastic Tuna strikes again

Well, I was 'heartened' to discover that the university's decision to implement a smioke free campus is little more incipient Fascism.  Social engineering on the order of  Nazi Germany.  It is but a slippery slope.  No, my dear friends, the true evil in the world is, as you might have guessed, PLASTIC!  Quell horror!  I am just short of apoplectic at the analogy to Nazi Germany.  The Tuna obvious has no grasp of history (or logic).  And that PLASTICS are the bane of our civilization.  Really dear, I thought you were more smarter than that.  I guess I was wrong.  I can't begin to tell you on how many levels you are wrong.  Not to mention nearsighted. She is leading the parade against PLASTICS.  If only she could devote similar energies to the actual betterment of MANKIND.  Ending hatred of all stripes.  But the bottom line is I can't even begin to address her specious analogies.  And I am the one who is mental?  She is off the rails on this one.  Of course she is entitled to her opinion.  But goodness knows what squirrel is running loose in her attic.

I have only one thing to say: AARRGGHH!!!!

Pissing match battle royale

Not coming as a surprise to Sophie, I am currently engaged in a pissing match at work over the university's recent edict to ban smoking on campus, a move I am all in favor of.  The Magic Plastic Tuna, among others, see this as a huge violation of the rights of the Individual against the behemoth that is the university.  The Tuna sees this as MSU owning the air we breathe (which it does when we work) and the sky above.  While I might be predisposed to believe that this is a violation of individual rights I am, in my own words 'heartened' to not have to walk through a haze of smoke to get into the library.  The Libertarians see this as a line in the sand, a la Ayn Rand, pitting the rights of individuals against the common good.  I have been called nothing short of stupid because of my stance, which says more about the Individualists than me.  They perceive the new ban on smoking as draconian.  MSU is not nearly as draconian as other employers, e.g. Consumers Energy who mandates smoking bans, obesity levels and general health and wellness policies across the board.  Now the Individualists see the ban as a slippery slope to this type of regulation.  As support staff our wages and raises are predicated on the basis of our ability to keep health care costs down.  And this is another reason to support this ban.  Additionally, as I said in my reply to Ms. Tuna, cigarettes are a known carcinogen, much like asbestos, I really don't see the problem.  No one is raising a stink about asbestos removal on campus or lead paint abatement. Again these are carcinogens.  They have a negative impact on business and our environment.

I suspect for some what this boils down to is the rights of the individual against the common good.  Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I, again, don't hear the complaints when the state banned smoking in restaurants and bars (private sector).  This violate individual liberties for the sake of a common good.  I am sure to hear more about it today.  So today's topic is the rights of the individual against the rights of the common good.  Discuss and talk amongst yourselves.

A Jesuit Education

One of the many benefits of a Jesuit education, among others, is the ability to ponder the universe during the early hours of the morning in a night interrupted by the nocturnal emission of one cat puking on the bed.  So I sit upon my bed and wonder and wander.

I was coming back from therapy, which was actually a better session than I have had in recent weeks, probably due to my query about therapeutic yoga.  The Bird seems quite engaged that I would be willing to try this. She did.not seem to be disappointed with me any longer for not giving EMDR a fair shake.  But I digress.  My buddy and I were talking about AA (which I think is a great program if it works for you...it did not suit my needs and I have still been sober over eighteen years) and the concept of a Higher Power.  To me AA substitutes in addiction, in this case booze, with another, in that case religion, and seems to abandon the concept of owning the process of sobriety and abandoning responsibility for The Self.  You admit you are powerless over your addiction and turn yourself over to a Higher Power.   Again, if it has worked for you that is wonderful.  Didn't work for me as I had a hard time with the Higher Power business and in the meetings I attended, and I did attend meetings, the Higher Power that  was often very Christian and full of God.  So, my buddy and I were talking about this and she was saying that she thought of a higher power (lower case) as nature, not God-driven.  And I was saying I had trouble with the concept of higher powers.  At once I was an atheist, later a more rational agnostic.  Now I don't know what.  I told her of my experience as an undergraduate at a Jesuit college (to which I had earned a scholarship).   I spoke to a Jesuit who had a Ph.D. In physics and I asked how could he reconcile his faith in God with a scientific mindset,  he said he believed in the Big Bang Theory but a God had provided the 'divine spark' to start the ball rolling. Whatever gets you through the night I guess.  This to me was a less that satisfactory explanation of the whole soup,of the universe,  to wit to woo GOD.

Later in my collegiate career I learned of Pascal's Wager.  Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician in the 17th century.  He posited the following logic about the existence of God.  If you believe in God and there is one you have won the wager.  If you believe in God and there isn't one you have neither won nor lost.  If you don't believe in God and their is one then you have lost.  So, in other words, all humans bet their lives that either God exists or doesn't.  Given the possibility that God does exist and assuming an infinite gain or loss associated with the believe or unbelief, a 'rational' person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God.  If Gid does not actually exists you only have a finite loss.  What is most significant about the Wager is it gave rise to new ground in probability theory, marked the first use of decision theory and actually can be said to anticipate such future philosophies such as Existentialism, Pragmatism and Volunteerism.  This is but a brief explanation of the concept.  It had a grip on me and still does.  I tend towards an Existential world view.  Yet I believe  in a God, basically because I believe in music and creation thereof.  When first I heard Mendelssohn's violin concerto, the one in E minor, op.,64, i believed in a God.  Such beauty had to arise from sacred space.  Less than logical but every time I hear that piece I am reduced to tears at its sheer beauty and harmony with my universe.

So like my buddy who believes Nature is a higher power of no particular religiosity, I hear in music God's Trombone being played.  (A tribute to James Weldon Johnson).  Many more to my point is the concept that we are all in this together, whatever this is,   And there is only one way out and there is no knowing what exists in the great beyond.  All we can know is what is here and now, what came before is merely prologue, to swipe a line from the National Archives.

I am sitting here in bed pondering and sweating as it is so humid not a sound is audible.  I am waiting for first light so I can take a walk and appreciated the beauty of the day.  Chalk this up to ramblings of a not so mad woman.

Alright, I confess

I was so upset about being misled last week that by Friday and bubbling over with anger and frustration over a myriad of things that had happened in the previous few days I punched a door with my good left hand (my right having be victimized one or two times too many in years past).  Bruised but vented the anger and frustration melting into a cesspool of resentment that was barely containable with a few walks. 

The truth has set me, if not free, along a path to that place.